Perry Hopes to Revive Campaign With Retail Campaigning in SC

Republican presidential hopeful Rick Perry likely killed his candidacy with flubbed debate performances and intemperate remarks about issues. But Politico reports that he’s doing his best to resuscitate it in South Carolina by returning to his core competency – retail campaigning.

Now that there’s little on the line — most political operatives assume his candidacy is toast — he’s relaxed and engaging, finding common ground with the average Americans he’s meeting on the campaign trail.

The Texas governor recently encountered a man in Summerville, S.C., who served in the Texas National Guard. Perry quickly realized they had a friend in common. “We flew together in our first flights,” he said. “Tell him I said hello.”

Katon Dawson, a former South Carolina GOP chairwoman who has traveled with Perry this week as a senior adviser, said Perry does much better putting his shoe leather to work than trying to match debating skills with his opponents.

“Absolutely,” Dawson told Politico. “Now that he’s planted here, he’s a retail politics politician that connects with people on the stump. We are the underdog, and that’s sort of where he’s been in every election. He very seldom starts out on top.”